Since the share of elderly people is growing it is necessary to study their social support networks. Based on representative sample of elderly in Slovenia six distinct types of social support networks were found using multivariate cluster analysis. These six types of social support networks can be classified into three qualitative types, namely local family dependent social support networks that represent 65% of all networks, locally integrated social support networks represent 15% of all networks and wider community focused support networks represent 21% of the sample. Within respondents with local family dependant social support networks a group of elderly with very small networks can be found. Together with elderly people that have wider community focused support networks, this group is probably the one that will need additional formal sources of social support.
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